Is it Time to Give Up? Am I Done with This Thing?

in #ecotrain5 years ago

This week's Ecotrain question asks: 'How do we know it's time to give up on something'. You can find the details here. I love these questions - they always seem coincidentally timely, forcing me to face issues head on. Perhaps they simply ask me to be attentive to something that is always there - however, by reading others posts and reflecting myself, I tend to reach an answer of sorts. Anyone can answer - tag your response #ecotrain so the community can find you, and go read what others have to say!

It is revision week this week at school. As usual, the vast majority of students are clamouring at the door, asking them to reteach content that you've already taught, telling you they don't understand things you've spend hours patiently explaining in various creative ways, and asking for extra tutoring time outside of class because apparently, teachers don't need to eat, sleep or teach other classes. Last minute emails come in at 11 am, and they are indignant if they aren't replied to by 9 am the next day, or they submit practice essays and want them marked yesterday.

image.png
Image Source on Unsplash

Whilst I should be amused by this usual turn of affairs, knowing that students by now should be taking responsibility for their own learning, I feel anxiety creep in again. The demon asks: have you really taught them what they need to know? What have you missed? Have you fulfilled your responsibilities? Have you really been the best you can be? I'm flooded with cortisol - stress hormones make my skin crawl and my jaw clench. I tell myself to breath, do yoga, go walking, meditate. Let it be, let it be, runs the mantra. You have done all you can. You are enough.

On Monday, I flounced into the library for a quick drink of water in their staff kitchen and to pinch one of the mints on the table, the crisp taste offering a sharp distraction to the taste of anxiety in my mouth. It gives my jaw something to work over. It's 12 degrees celsius out there and I'm stripped down to a short sleeved shirt - I'm an animated teacher, theatrical. I love the performance aspect of teaching - I step into a role that is confident and assured, faking the feeling inside I'm not good enough. It's written in my stars - pouring over the planets in my houses, this is the aspect that presents a front to the world that I don't feel inside. The contradiction is that I do know what I'm doing - I'm a great teacher, people say - empathetic, creative, flexible, and passionate. Hell, I would have loved me as a teenager.

The librarian asks me why I'm not wearing a jumper. I explain it's because of how I teach, but also mention, because we've talked about anxiety before, it's because anxiety makes me hot. She looks at me sympathetically. 'Do you ever think you're in the wrong profession?' she asks.

Is it time for me to give teaching up? Is all this telling me it is too much, that I should let it go?

The stress has been with me for a good few years now. I've let go a lot, moving to a part time timetable which gives me space to breathe in a busy and overstretched workplace. All my systems are in place. But still, it's debilitating, and I recognise that I can't continue like this. I've made the decision to take a year off next year, and people ask me: do you think you'll go back? But I am never sure. This means giving up on something I've enjoyed doing, and wanted to do, my whole life.

When I was at school, I was bullied very badly. As a consequence, I hardened myself against the world, taking a long time to realise that my empathetic, intuitive, caring and creative side was who I was and something of which to embrace rather than reject. In feeling rejected, I became awfully wounded back then - I still feel so sad for that unformed self that learnt to put up defences to survive in the world. Yet I also wanted to be a teacher, because I had a fabulous English teacher at school that made me believe that I was talented, and taught in a way that made me passionately connect to the literature I already loved to begin with. My parents were good teachers too - not for a living, but they made education enjoyable. I believe these things led me to teaching - I enjoyed education myself, and I wanted to work with teenagers because I wanted to help them, empathising with their struggles to fit in, to be themselves, to feel confident, to create and grow. All my life, too, I have reminders that this is my dharma, a kind of destiny or purpose that is true to who I am. And it fits - I feel comfortable with that. I'm happy to own this path in my life and I think it fits with who I want to be as a human being. I have the power to help people, and should be using it.

I adore being in the classroom. I love the students, who cheer me up when I'm struggling. I love the a-ha moments they realise, the huge and genuine smiles that come when they achieve something, the feeling you get when you're kind to someone who really needs it and know you've made a difference in their day. I love the constant challenge, the creativity of this profession. I'm not as keen on workplace politics, administration, and parents, but the love of being in the classroom keeps that on a reasonable balance.

Yet how can I reconcile that with the anxious, wounded parts of myself that constantly fear I'm not good enough? How do I marry the part of me that wants to be free to garden, to meditate, to create things at home and live outside a system that I don't wholly believe in? What if I never heal from the stress breakdown I had three years ago (due to incredible pressures from a workplace that at the time were pushing me, and all other staff, beyond all reasonable limits??)

There has been many times in the last few years where I have thought that it's really not worth it. But facing a year off, with little money and a whole load of freedom and space, I'm thinking that perhaps I'll have real time to contemplate whether I'll come back to this career.

I also have a wonderful new resource in a reiki energy healer that I've been put in touch with who does EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. This treatment is a psychotherapy treatment that was designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories, which I've come to believe is the reason why I'm finding it hard to cope with what I'm doing. She assures me EMDR will help reformulate my negative responses and physiological arousal every time I enter the classroom. There's hope. And I feel this is right, too, as if I'm taking all the steps I'm meant to take to reconnect with my true self, and what I'm capable of.

So, my answer to the librarian's question about whether I'm in the right profession?

As I gulp down the water, half choking on a mint, and spin around to go back to class, I laugh. 'No! I adore teaching. I'm not quite ready to give up yet!'.

How will I know when it's time to give up? When I know in my heart and bones and breath. When I've done all I can to heal, I will live with that decision too, and find a new way to fulfil my dharma. Because I am many, many things - and one of them is a teacher, and I don't think I am really ready to give up that part of who I essentially am.



B2235A50C31CD126067343B513524EE62.gif

@naturalmedicine II Discord Invite II #naturalmedicine


Website | @homesteaderscoop | Discord Community

image.png


MindfulLife.gif
Discord 🧘About

image.png

Sort:  

You can and will always be a teacher. Even if you decide not to continue to teach in the stressful, government regimented, environment of mainstream education. You will continue to touch lives in a positive way. Whether in the current teaching environment or a very different one. I’m happy to hear that you’re taking some time off. You’ll gain a whole new perspective. I look forward to seeing all of the ways you choose to use your freedom!

You know, I needed to hear that today! it's really good advice. I've got a year to think about how my teaching might manifest itself as a thing in another way, that's for sure!

Would I be a fit for the tribe steem up group? It seems like a good niche to be in. I sent the account a message for advice a little while back and didn't get a response.

Try messaging @kennyskitchen :)

Congratulations @riverflows! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published more than 450 posts. Your next target is to reach 500 posts.

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!

I think being a teacher is more about presence of being rather than formal occupation ~ if that makes sense.

And there's plenty of ways to teach aside from teaching in a school format.

I like to think sometimes I teach people in my own way by sharing my experiences and shenanigans. Like... This is what I'm making, you can do it too! But you can do it better than I'm doing it!

My thing is stress and depression. Once I start feeling anxiety, stressed and depressed I f.off whatever is making me be that way asap because from experience it's a bitch to crawl my way out of a depression hole and I lose my mind in that space.

I have that hard shell too, but I find it's good to have it. It's just about balancing that and still be creative and empathic.

❤❤❤ A year off sounds exactly what you need.

Posted using Partiko Android

This. Whole. Comment.

You rock. It's exactly what I needed to hear and you put it in words that have settled nicely in my consciousness.

I think being a teacher is more about presence of being rather than formal occupation.

You are so right. And fuck the A-HOLE... the anxiety hole!!!

Posted using Partiko Android

Hugs to you my friend ❤

Posted using Partiko Android

Work related stress is a biggie to deal with @riverflow. I totally relate to your words. I also really loved my job and even when I talked to my team about stress and how to cope with it I still ended up with chronic stress. I really thought that I had control of my stress. How wrong was I.

Thanks Angie...appreciated. They we're really supportive in the end. Now it's my inability to cope, which is a shame. I know you know the feeling. Hopefully I can figure it out. Xxx

Posted using Partiko Android

Oh dear, see you are putting so much thought in your teaching side, that dimply shows you want to do your best here and you are. You will always be a teacher, to your kids, to people around you, to people on steemit and to me 💖

Thankyou soooo much. That means alot. Xxx more than you know x

Posted using Partiko Android

Hello
Interesting article
Have a good day

@senattor I notice many of your comments are the same. Please try to be relevant, personal and connect with content actually written. What is interesting about it?

Have agreed

Healing our own wounds through teaching is a finite equation, assuming we want to heal. Maybe your teaching will morph to something gentler - migrant education, private tutoring, online teaching or writing educational materials...? I wasn't clear about How You Will Know It's Time? other than "when you know it in your heart and bones and breath". Very dramatic, my dear. I anxiously await Part 2 of this post. ;)


Leading the curation trail for both @ecotrain & @eco-alex.
Together We’re Making This World A Better Place.
Click Here To Join the manually curated trail "@artemislives" to support quality eco-green content.


@ecoTrain

Yes I think morph is coming! I am a believer in when you know you know. All else is doubt and inquiry and meditating on answers. When I feel it body and soul is when I'll make the definitive decision to let go, if I need to. There is no 'other' for me. But that's just me... other people might do it differently.

Posted using Partiko Android

oh beautiful Rivers, I so feel you on this, how can we come up with the answers when we are so immersed in what is causing us distress, when it also makes us happy. You so need some time out, having a year away is just what you need and then you can answer this question, because you will see what your life is like without your work. You so deserve this time to nurture you and reconnect with you. Much love beautiful, I know you do your job from a place of love xx

Thankyou... yes, the break is what I need to bring me the definitive answers. I think people here are right, that side of me will take a different path to be fulfilled. Or I may just desperately need the money and have to go back! Ouch.

Posted using Partiko Android

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70733.96
ETH 3563.16
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.76